This is the first term for the newly elected VP
Outreach. This position is responsible for maintaining
alliances and providing assistance to New Jersey communities,
corporations, government, and educational institutions.

PMINJ Volunteer of the Quarter 2Q15

By Pamela Eden

Jerry Meier -
Programs – On-Site Registration Team

Jerry Meier has been volunteering as a member of PMINJ
Programs On-Site Registration activities since November,
2011, when he joined the team led by Dennis Komsa. As
a dedicated team member with detailed knowledge of the
On-Site Registration process, Jerry agreed to take the Team
Leader role when Dennis stepped down in June, 2013.
Since then, Jerry has worked tirelessly to recruit, train,
organize and manage a team of volunteers who welcome
members and guests at PMINJ Programs’ Monthly Chapter
Meetings. Each month, Jerry coordinates with his team
members to develop a schedule to ensure full coverage of the
registration table; obtains and copies meeting handouts;
manages attendance tracking and reporting at the Main
Meeting location; and verifies accurate headcount numbers
for the dinner meeting bill. He also helps facilitate
sponsor and outreach activity logistics. Always ready
and willing to tackle new challenges to improve the
registration process, Jerry worked with John Bufe to pilot
and deploy automated walk-in registrations via smartphone
and has helped streamline attendance tracking using Google
docs. An efficient, organized Team Leader, Jerry can
be relied on to ensure On-Site Registration runs smoothly,
and should be recognized for his longstanding support of
PMINJ as a volunteer and Programs On-Site Registration Team
Leader. See other VoQs on the website.

How to nominate:
Each quarter, the Board recognizes the outstanding
accomplishments of a volunteer from the PMINJ chapter.
The Chapter newsletter will feature a “Volunteer Spotlight”
section that will include the write-up and picture of the
winner. Selection criteria includes, but is not
limited to:

Nominee’s membership must be in good standing with PMI
and NJ Chapter

Minimum of six months of volunteer service to the NJ
Chapter

Summary of key contributions with emphasis on impact to
our organization

If you would like to nominate a volunteer, send your
recommendation to:
. Nominations will be
discussed and voted upon at the next PMINJ Board meeting.

PMINJ 2015 Scholarship Winners

By Marianne Burke

The NJ Chapter of the Project Management Institute has a
number of outreach programs to engage its members and the
community of Project Management. One of the best ways the
Chapter does this is to reach out to the children of members
to offer an opportunity for support as they prepare for
college.

Each year a dedicated team reviews applications received
from members’ children who are seniors in high school. Each
year the team goes through every application and scores each
applicant based on a rubric comprising a number of areas;
transcript / scores / leadership / recommendation and an
essay. Each year the accomplishments of the applicants
nearly overwhelms the team as they review every piece of
information that the applicants provide.

This year the team awarded ten (10) scholarships to upcoming
college freshman and one (1) to a Graduate student member.
The awards were personally delivered to the recipients at
the June Chapter meeting, providing an opportunity for all
PMINJ chapter members to meet them. The group, once again,
was a diverse mix from all over the state and from 9
different high schools. Their combined accomplishments
covered a spectrum ranging from music to science to Scouts
to math to literature…and on and on.

Every applicant was a strong one. The purpose of the
committee is to provide a fair assessment of every student.
It is not an easy process and as with all projects, the
timeline is tight. The work is tough but it is so meaningful
to the Chapter, the members, the students and of course,
their parents, that it is worth the effort to get it right.

Once awarded, the scholarship is renewable for the next 3
years provided each consecutive year results in a GPA of 3.0
or higher. This renewable portion of the scholarship is
unusual when compared to other scholarships and provides an
added incentive to the students to maintain their developed
study habits as they move to the much more difficult college
level while at the same time that they leave home.

The website lists our
current winners as well as our past winners. Please take a
look at it and know your support of the PMINJ Chapter makes
this outreach program a success in all ways.

Member Services – 1 Year Anniversary

By Cathy Bruce

Member Services is celebrating our first year of operation!

We are a team of volunteers who are dedicated to providing
you the help and assistance you need regarding our chapter
and our many events. Launched in May of 2014 we
have responded to more than 600 emails while maintaining our
professional daily careers.

The Member Service Center serves as a single point of
contact for all PMINJ Member questions, issues and concerns
that relate to PMINJ. We
work with all the PMINJ teams that provide PMINJ activities
and events. Our goals is to offer a timely
and consistent response, navigating your issues to the right
team.

The Member Services Team consists of the following
volunteers

Mark Barash – our VP of Membership

Cathy Bruce

Velmani Natarajan

Bhasker Nayini

Manivasakan Palaniyandi

Alexis Sadowski

Anand Shanmugam

Cyndi Wilso

To round out the team, we have volunteers dedicated
specifically to Symposium related activities:

Elizabeth Carfagno

Beth Hymowitz

Laura McMahon

Suzanne Walsh

Our top ranking question is supporting team members in the
login process. If you have not visited us in
more than one year you may need to use the reset password
option to re-establish your account details.

We have set our team goal to respond to member inquiries
within 2 business days. We are monitoring
our service level agreement. As you can
see below, we are doing great so far.

We look forward to continuing to serve the needs of our
fellow PMINJ members. Email us at
. We will respond within 2
business days.

Programs 2015-2016 Early Bird Pre-Registration Starts in
August

By Lisa Blake
The PMINJ Programs 2015-2016 schedule is nearly final, with
great speakers, LCI events, and rotating Main Meeting
locations (see webpage).

Starting in August, PMINJ Chapter members will have an
exclusive opportunity to pre-register for all of the
Chapter’s monthly programs. Members who pre-register
by September 12 will have the combined benefits of doing all
registrations at once and a $25 discount on the monthly
programs fees.

The standard $25 monthly pre-registration cost for monthly
programs is still a great value for the meal, networking,
LCI events, and speaker presentations worth 1.5 PDUs ($225
for all programs during the year). By pre-registering,
members’ discounted cost will be $200 (that’s attending one
program free!). After September 12, the special Early
Bird price is not available, and the Early Bird registration
cannot be refunded.

Only PMINJ Chapter member are eligible for this Early Bird
opportunity. If you’re not a member already, becoming
a PMINJ member ($20 per year) will save $185 on the
registration fee. (9 meetings @ $45 (non-member rate)
= $405.)

With the exception of the September 17th meeting (Thursday),
monthly meeting dates are on the third Tuesday of the
month. Early Bird registration is NOT available for
satellite locations.

Remember, you must be a PMINJ Chapter member to take
advantage of this opportunity. Hope to See You
in September!

Summer Special: Breakfast with a Board Member

By Lisa Blake

Chapter President Judy Balaban kicked off the breakfast
meetings on July 1st at the Time to Eat Diner in Bridgewater
to start a series of casual meetings and candid
conversations about the Chapter, its services, the
profession, and how PMINJ can help support members’ growth
and success as project management professionals.

Breakfasts will be held at locations around the state, so if
you’re interested in joining the conversation, check the
calendar on the website for an upcoming breakfast, and
sign-up to attend. Only PMINJ Members are eligible to
register for the breakfasts, and reservations will be
limited to 10 people per event. Registration will open
about 2 weeks prior to each event, and will close 3 days
before the event, or when reservations are full, with
location details / directions sent to registrants the day
before the event.

Have breakfast with a Board member, and join the
conversation! See additional details and schedule on
the website.

August Workshop - Strategic Project Management
Transformation

By Lisa Blake

Billions of dollars are wasted each and every year as a
result of failed projects, and that’s just in the U.S.
alone! Failed projects, quite simply, are those that do
not achieve their forecasted business benefits. A strong
emphasis is placed on project delivery, but the focus on
benefit attainment is seriously lacking. The
transformation from project management to strategic
project management is long overdue. All levels of
organizations must embrace this transformation if we are
to prevent this disturbing trend from continuing.
What can we, as project managers, do to help achieve
this transformation?

Here’s your chance to learn how to transform your
approach to strategic project management! On
August 31, PMINJ is co-sponsoring a 1-day workshop with
the Resch Group on Strategic Project Management
Transformation. The workshop will be led by Marc Resch,
President of Resch Group, and will be held at SHI
International Corporation in Somerset.

Join Marc for an energizing, informative session and
learn how to be a strategic thinker and business leader
in the global project-based environment. Workshop
participants will learn how to apply strategic planning,
leadership best practices and business innovation to all
of their projects, and as a result, will be able to
consistently maximize and sustain the business results
from project investments – the ultimate goal of any
project or program.

All attendees will be eligible to earn 8 PDUs, and will
receive cutting edge templates, free of charge.
Class size is limited, with discounted pricing through
July 31st. Register
today.

Event Reports

DeVry University Risk Management Class

By Dennis McCarthy

Thanks to a series of conversations between Bruce
Herniter, Associate Professor at DeVry University and John
Tse, PMINJ VP Professional Development about establishing
a Project Management Student Group, PMINJ was able to
engage a class of graduate students studying project and
program risk management at DeVry University.

On April 6, 2015, Dennis McCarthy, PMINJ Director of
Corporate Outreach gave a presentation on Risk Management
using materials prepared by Claudia Campbell-Matland,
Independent Consultant and PMINJ Volunteer. Despite the
near 90 degree heat in the classroom and the quality of
the presenter’s jokes, the students remained engaged and
asked numerous questions about the real-world application
of risk management. A case study of the Apollo 13 mission
was reviewed in terms of risk planning, risk mitigation
and the iterative nature of risk management. In addition,
a small experiment in soliciting information validated the
process of crowd-sourcing and the law of large numbers’
ability to provide accurate input when estimating.

In an after action review at the end of the class, the
students were asked if they had learned anything new and
potentially useful. Many said that identifying and
monitoring risk triggers and the concept of predefined
project success criteria looked to be very applicable in
their experience.

PMINJ would like to thank Professor Herniter and his
students for this opportunity and look forward to seeing
them at the PMINJ Monthly Programs. In addition, PMINJ
volunteers staffed an information table at the May 20,
2015 DeVry University Career Fair; providing information
on project management as a career and the benefits of PMI
and PMINJ membership and certification.

If your organization, school, or university need a
speaker, or a lunch and learn session (on virtually any
project management related topic), contact Dennis McCarthy
at
.

PMIT Team Member Takes On Email Campaign to Increase
Satellite Attendance at Monthly Meetings

By Doreen Clark

For 26 years, the Tour de Franklin bike ride has been the
Franklin Food Bank’s largest annual fundraiser.
Starting as a small bike ride of 30 riders raising $1,500
in 1989, the Tour de Franklin has grown to a major
community and biking event with 660 people coming together
in 2015 to raise over $62,000 for the Food Bank.
During the day there were 7 rides or walks, including a
62-mile, 40-mile, and 25 mile ride through Franklin
Township; lunch and t-shirts for all participants; and an
on-line registration and donation payment system.
The undertaking requires a full 4 months of planning.

The Franklin Food Bank has also grown from an annual
budget of $3,000 in 1989 to a budget of $600,000 in 2014
as it continues to fight hunger in the community. As
part of this growth, the Food Bank has seen approximately
a 10% increase in demand annually for its services since
the start of the “Great Recession” in 2007. The
graph shows the number of food packages distributed per
year:

Figure 1 - Food Packages Distributed by
Franklin Food Bank

The Franklin Food Bank is not part of any
government agency and is supported only by community
donations. It is operated by a small paid staff and
a large group of volunteers. Like many small
non-profit organizations, it does not have the resources
to plan and manage an event as large as the Tour de
Franklin or to analyze the results for future
efforts. So for the past 4 years, the Food Bank has
partnered with PMINJ for help with the event planning,
execution and analysis. As the relationship matured,
PMINJ’s role has expanded from volunteers on the day of
the event in 2011 to volunteer management, process
improvement, total event planning, and public relations
management, including social media marketing. In
2015, the following PMI NJ members participated in the
Tour de Franklin Planning Committee:

Alex Shishkin - Event planning / Scheduling

Doreen Clark - Public Relations / Media Coordination

Melinda Posipanko - Volunteer Coordination

Velmani Natarajan - Registration / Process
Improvement

Tour de Franklin Chairperson Lisa Frey
states:

“Collaborating with PMINJ has been a wonderful
experience for the Franklin Food Bank. As chair of
the Tour de Franklin Planning Committee I have relied
heavily on the efforts of the PMINJ volunteers who have
worked with us over the past few years. They have
brought much needed structure and order to our planning
efforts and directly contributed to our two most
successful Tour de Franklins in 2014 and 2015. We look
forward to continuing our relationship with PMINJ.”

This successful effort and the relationship
it fostered have led to other PMINJ efforts at the Food
Bank in recent years. PMINJ members have participated on
the Food Bank’s Strategic Planning Committee, led a
facility planning effort, and are supporting another Food
Bank fundraiser, Canalfest.

Teaming with Montclair State University
Fundraising efforts such as the Tour de Franklin are often
condensed projects, with planning, execution, measurement,
and close-out phases occurring in rapid succession.
Recognizing this tendency and the need for focused
management, the late Barbara Fuller, PMINJ VP Marketing,
and Professor Te Wu of Montclair State University teamed
to offer a Project Management Experiential class to MBA
students, with four of the students assigned to the 2015
Tour de Franklin Public Relations / Media Coordination
effort. PMINJ member Doreen Clark presented the
fundamentals of the Project Management phases and mentored
the students on successful project management concepts and
techniques in the context of the Tour de Franklin, then
managed their efforts through the next four months of
planning and implementation. As part of the class,
the students performed much needed tasks of planning,
analysis, research, Facebook social media development, and
tracking project activities for the Tour, effectively
extending the resources available to the Planning
Committee. In return, the students learned
first-hand how to apply project management fundamentals to
this type of intense project.

Figure 2 - Montclair Group Planning
Report

Figure 3 - Tour De Franklin Facebook
Banner

The Franklin Food Bank, Montclair State
University and PMINJ all agreed that the experiential
learning class was very beneficial to all participants and
worth continuing. Chairperson Frey stated, “Working
with the Montclair students was a terrific way for our
committee to get extra help focused and directed by a
skilled PMINJ volunteer.”

Finally, on the day of the event, 2 Montclair students and
9 PMINJ members were part of the 120-strong volunteer
group that made the Tour happen. PMINJ also
supported the Tour de Franklin with a team riding in the
event.

Thank you to everyone who contributed.

PMINJ Spring “2-Cans-2-Bucks” Food Drive

By Doreen Clark

PMINJ held a spring food drive at the May Symposium and
May 19 Monthly meeting to help local food pantries.
The theme was “2-Cans-2-Bucks”, and participants were
asked to consider donating two non-perishable food items
or $2 in cash. Springtime food drives such as
PMINJ’s are very important to local food pantries because
donations are low this time of year while demand increases
as school ends for the summer.

PMINJ participants donated over 100 lbs of food and $147
at the May Symposium. Additionally, the Paramus
satellite participants donated 20 lbs. of food and $71 at
the May 19 meeting. The items and cash were donated
directly to the Food Pantry at the Roman Catholic Church
of the Little Flower and the Teaneck Food Pantry.

Thank you to everyone who donated and who
volunteered for the food drive.

“The Project Management Institute (PMI®)
estimates that four-and-a half million people in the
United States—representing about 3.3 percent of the
employed U.S. workforce—may regard project management as
their profession of choice. The size of the profession
in the rest of the world may be more than 12 million.”

“Projects are big business. PMI estimates that the U.S.
public and private sectors spend some US$2.3 trillion on
projects every year, an amount equivalent to one-quarter
of the nation’s gross domestic product. Extrapolating
U.S. data, PMI estimates that the world spends nearly
US$10 trillion of the world’s US$40.7 trillion gross
product on projects of all kinds.”
- Project Management Institute, Project Management Fact
Book, Second Edition

As these numbers clearly demonstrate,
project management is a viable career, and as such, an
option that should be seriously considered when starting a
career. To that end, the PMINJ Chapter and the PMINJ
Corporate Outreach Team have been making a concerted
effort to reach out to students currently enrolled in
colleges and universities.

On April 15, 2015, PMINJ Corporate Outreach
speaker and project management consultant, Snigdha Mitra
conducted a presentation for students taking an
Introduction to Project Management class at DeSales
University in Center Valley, PA (actually at the
Bethlehem, PA campus) being taught by Instructor Eric
Hagan. Snigdha spent over two hours with the
students - providing a presentation on soft skills for
project managers, answering questions, and leading the
students in a role playing exercise around effective
project management. Both the students and Eric were
“taken” by Snigdha and her delivery as clearly shown by
the following excerpt from Eric’s thank you letter.

“The students responded very positively to
Snigdha's visit. Her practical, real-world experience in
the field complemented our academic treatment of project
management concepts. I would highly recommend Snigdha to
do further outreach of this sort and as an ambassador of
PMI - New Jersey and the project management profession.

Thank you again for connecting me with
Snigdha.”

As Eric rightly noted, Snigdha has been an
excellent speaker and spokesperson for PMINJ and the
project management profession. She received similar rave
reviews after she gave a presentation to the New Jersey
Office of Information Technology on the benefits of having
an established Project Management Office late last year.

Claudia created the materials for the presentations and
geared the contents to students who have a mix of academic
and professional experience.

Thanks to Eric Hagan, Bruce Herniter, Snigdha Mitra, and
Claudia Campbell-Matland for providing these opportunities
to inform students about project management.

The PMINJ Corporate Outreach Team is actively looking to
partner with other colleges and universities in the area
to provide speakers and information regarding project
management knowledge and experience for building a career
or to use as a life skill. If you are affiliated
with a college or university, please contact Dennis
McCarthy / PMINJ Director Outreach at
.

Also PMINJ has been developing our partnerships with
elementary, middle, and high schools (as well as related
youth organizations such as Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts,
etc.). Those interested in pursuing these
partnerships can use the same contact information: Dennis
McCarthy / PMINJ Director Outreach at
.

PM User Group Established by the New Jersey Office of
Information Technology (NJOIT) Program Management Office

By Dennis Mccarthy

On June 16, Steve Wayman, PMP gave a presentation on
Meeting Facilitation to the project managers and other key
project team members involved with the PM User Group
established by the New Jersey Office of Information
Technology (NJOIT) Program Management Office. The
presentation was interactive and covered what makes good
meetings, facilitation skills, and using Project
Management process groups as a framework for meetings.

Formal feedback collected after the presentation was
universally positive and the session was very well
received. 100% of the participants responding rated
the training and the speaker (Steve) as either “Excellent”
or “Satisfactory”, and 100% said that the session was
informative and / or applicable to their job.

Kelly Silverstein, PMO/NJOIT and Dennis McCarthy, PMINJ
Director, Corporate Outreach, coordinated this joint
session between NJOIT and PMINJ so that the two
organizations could share knowledge and best practices.
This is the second session between these organizations,
and based on the continued feedback, Kelly is hopeful that
NJOIT can continue to partner with PMINJ on future
presentations to the benefit of both organizations.

If your organization could benefit from having an
experienced speaker, presentation, or lunch and learn on
any topics related to project or program management,
contact Dennis McCarthy / Director, Corporate Outreach at
. We look forward to helping
you in any way we can.

Experiential Learning – One Chapter One State

The One Community idea was first conceived by the late VP
Marketing, Barbara Fuller and VP of Program, Lisa
Blake. In September 2014, at a PMINJ monthly meeting,
Barbara met Professor Te Wu of Montclair State University
(MSU) and initiated this discussion.

To initiate the planning of this program, Barbara and Te
agreed to include this idea as a part of an experiential
learning course. Sadly, Barbara passed away before the
course started. PMINJ leadership, including Elaine Tanimura,
Mark Barash, Dennis McCarthy and Lisa, continued the program
with Te and engaged three students over the Spring 2015
semester on a program planning exercise.

Experiential Course
For the first six weeks of the program, Te worked with eight
students (there were other students in the experiential
learning course) and engaged them in the basics of business
consulting. In addition to discussing and reviewing, Te
shared his experience as a management consultant.
Starting in late February, the Montclair team of three
students started working with PMINJ leaders in a series of
meetings:

Initial kickoff and brainstorming in February resulted
in the eventual assembly of the One Chapter One State
program.

Business review meeting in March reviewed and ratified
the program charter.

Implementation planning meeting in April discussed how
to operationalize the One Chapter One State program and
initiate specific project activities within the program.

A final meeting was held in May for the students to
present their work and deliverables to PMINJ leaders.

Deliverables and Outcome
As a part of this program, the students, working with the
professor and PMINJ leaders created a series of noteworthy
deliverables including the following:

Program Charter – Defining the nature of this program,
its objectives, and program parameters

Program Roles & Responsibilities – Identifying the
key roles and their activities for the ongoing
implementation of this program

Project Proposal Template – Designing a small but
effective template for capturing new ideas and making a
business case for their implementation

PMO – Implementing a program management office for the
ongoing management of the One Chapter One State program.
Canvas is the de facto system for housing all program
artifacts.

The business benefits to PMINJ are tremendous. Through this
experiential learning course, PMINJ has now transformed the
One Chapter One State from an idea to a program. In addition
to the planning deliverables such as the charter, roles and
responsibilities, and proposal template, PMINJ also now has
a mechanism to vet new ideas, prioritize them, and monitor
the implementation of these ideas.

The value to MSU is also immeasurable. Immediately, the
students involved in the program learned how to plan
programs, from a relatively unstructured set of ideas to
creating a program structure that can deal with ambiguities
and plan for business execution. The program planning
deliverables are based on industry best practices, and the
skills can be leveraged in their future career. More
importantly, MSU will provide resources to manage the PMO
and continue the relationship with PMINJ, benefiting future
students by giving them real-life projects for their
assignments. Perhaps most importantly, this experiential
learning course is a demonstration of how MSU can work with
professional organizations to create a synergistic
relationship that is mutually beneficial to all parties.

Article Submission & Publication
Information

Editor Kristine
Clark

Submissions:

Where to Send: Contact the newsletter editor,
at
for newsletter related items, to submit articles and to
provide feedback. All members are invited to submit
articles, meeting reviews, or other items of interest
for publication.